Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [readnow TXT] 📗

“No,” she said, illogically, “I can’t do it because that would make me like him! And I am not like him!”

I frowned but didn’t ask the obvious question. I wasn’t sure she was listening to me. I picked up a piece of pizza and bit into it. While I chewed, she stared out the window. After a bit, she said, “You believe him, don’t you?”

I swallowed. “Do you?”

She mad a sound that was almost a growl and buried her face in her hands, then ran her fingers through her hair. “Man, I really did not need a hangover today!”

I smiled. “Do you regret it?”

She looked at me sharply, then slowly smiled. “No.” She flopped back in her chair. “I’m sorry I was… weird. It’s complicated.”

I raised my eyebrows and nodded.

Before I could say anything she added, “But it’s nice to be back to normal.”

“Are we?”

She looked surprised.

I went on, “Were we ever?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“We were never normal, Carmen.”

“I guess not.”

I pulled off half my beer. “Beer is good for a hangover, Ritoo Glasshoppah. We’ll talk later. Right now, let us consider the state of the case.”

She did several things with her eyebrows that were hard to follow, then said, “If you believe that piece of… If you believe Irizarry, we have a real problem. Because we have gone from having too many suspects, to not having any at all. And somebody murdered Sebastian.”

“Of that there can be no doubt, Dehan. But we must not fall into the trap of making the facts fit our theories. If it was not Jack O’Brien, it was not Akachukwu, and it was not Ed Irizarry, then it must have been somebody else.”

She spread her hands, looking at me aghast. “Who? There isn’t anybody else!”

I shook my head, bit into another slice of pizza, and spoke with my mouth full. “Yum cum shee amybobby erf.”

“I can’t see anybody else.”

I nodded. “Mm-hm…”

“OK, Sensei, enlighten me.”

I shrugged, swallowed, and drank beer. “Think. What is the eternal motivation for murder?”

“Sex.”

“So who might have had reason to be sexually jealous?”

“Of Sebastian?”

“For example…”

“Um…” she looked abstracted, frowning out of the window at the bright, June day. “Um…”

“Was he good-looking?”

“Yeah, I guess he was.”

“An attractive young intern with a bright future. You think maybe Angela might have been attracted to him?”

“Come on! You can’t be serious!”

“Why not?”

“Moses?”

“A man of very strict morals. Strikes me as the Old Testament type. We know by his own admission that he will strike out when provoked…”

“Holy cow!”

“Both he and Angela were keen, first to tell us nothing, and then to send us off after Akachukwu. Think it through: He’s been hiding out, but he misses his woman, so late that night he comes home. But instead of finding her alone, asleep in bed, he finds her up, with two young men, drunk, at three in the morning… Is it so unbelievable?”

She was gaping.

I ignored her. “But hang on there, Little Grasshopper, what about Luis? Didn’t we wonder right from the start why the killer left him alive?”

Now she looked horrified. “So who shot him?”

“You never came across somebody so crazed with passion that they kill the object of their rage, and then shoot themselves?”

She flopped back in her chair. “What are you doing?”

“Just showing you that there is always another suspect.”

She looked distressed. “Is this what it’s like in your head all the time?”

I smiled and reached for my phone, which had started ringing. “Eat your pizza and drink your beer, or you’ll never grow up to be strong and smart like me. Stone!”

The last bit I said into the phone.

“Detective Stone, this is Detective Anthony D’Adamo, of the 45th Precinct. Do you have two witnesses staying at Prentiss Avenue, in Edgewater Park?”

I frowned at Dehan. “Yes, I do. Why?”

“One Moses Johnson and Angela Rojas?”

“Yes, what’s this about, Detective?”

“I think you’d better get over here. They’ve both been murdered.”

* * *

Detective D’Adamo was waiting for us beyond the yellow tape, at the top of the stairs we had so recently climbed to meet Moses Johnson. We moved through a horseshoe of patrol cars and flashing lights and climbed those steps again. He was taller, younger, and thinner than he’d sounded on the phone, and he was smoking a cigarette. He watched us arrive, took a cursory glance at our badges, and said, “So is this your case or mine?”

I sighed. “That’s a good question, Detective. Mind if we take a look?”

He shrugged. “Be my guest.”

We stayed by the door because the Crime Scene team were dusting and photographing, and Frank was kneeling beside Angela. She was on her back, at the far end of the room, by the sofa, with her left leg out straight and the right one bent at the knee, flopped over to one side.

Moses was closer. He was lying partially on his left side, with his right arm slightly outstretched, as though he had been reaching for something. I figured he’d been reaching for Angela, trying to get back to her, and I felt momentarily guilty about the way I had teased Dehan earlier. She stood by my side and muttered, “I guess it wasn’t him, huh, Stone?”

I nodded. “I guess.”

Frank stood and walked over to us. He looked depressed.

I said, “.38?”

“Yes, John, a .38. Seven shots, two in Moses’ chest. One in the heart, the other on the right side of his chest. The other five are distributed around Angela’s thorax: one in the heart, another narrowly missed the heart, one in her liver, one through the gut, the other in the right lung.”

“Cowboy.”

“You might say so, John. Please catch this killer.”

“Detective D’Adamo wants